


Collection

by DickBaggins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, dark!Sam, mention of character death in a totally hypothetical way, slight spoilers through 10x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:33:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3983392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DickBaggins/pseuds/DickBaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has a just-in-case box full of pieces of Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collection

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, Sam was so quick with that hair sample, it really got me to wondering.

 Sam has a box of Dean-things.

It's a small box, because the things are small but he carries it everywhere, When they're in the bunker, it's in his desk. He used to have it under lock and key but he started having panicky nightmares of scrabbling at the lock with monsters on his heels., so he doesn't lock the drawer anymore. When they're on the road, he slips it into the false side of his messenger bag. It nestles in perfectly, hidden along a stiff seam and covered in dark brown lining. He sewed it himself.

The box is Dean's too. It's a cut down, refashioned quarter of a cigar box with a hinged opening and worn, light wood, smooth under his fingertips. Sam kind of remembers it growing up, remembers Dean unloading it from a bag or playing with it in the car or that time he asked what all that green stuff was in the bag in there and Dean shushed him because John was there. And he left it behind when he died, under the front seat on its side, spilling out laundry change. He never asked for it back, so Sam kept it and filled it with his brother.

It's all arranged very neatly, baggies stacked together, unlabelled because writing out 'Dean's hair, 09/20/10' is strange. It's better to think of it in memories anyway so the hair becomes Dean eating Halloween candy on the back terrace of the motel, giving a dissertation on the Poltergeist franchise while Sam buzzes the back of his head short. The tip of the straw turns into a diner outside of Des Moines where Dean ordered a sugary blended coffee drink and Sam burst out laughing. Fingernails remind him of being spread out on his stomach on the bed in a flamingo-themed room in the Florida panhandle, the sharp jab of a ragged edge catching on the back of his thigh, his own 'cut your fucking nails or you're not getting finger one up my ass' and Dean's eyeroll but hurried compliance.

They aren't all good memories, though. The 'Sammy let me go' note, folded into a tiny tube, is nothing but apprehension and Sam hopes he can replace it one day with something better. Dean doesn't write him a lot of notes though. The bloody piece of flannel, just brown spread out over dark green, that's a shitty knock down brawl they had with some revenants. The shirt got ruined, clawed through and bloody and Dean couldn't move his arm after the fight, but he still grumbled about it getting torn up. They spent a week recovering with pills and whiskey and takeout. That's probably why Sam has a napkin and the top of a plastic spoon from that case too. He usually diversifies but he was pretty messed up.

He's not sure how he'd explain it to Dean if he found it. Of course his brother would point out the weirder things first, the dried semen that Sam picked off the side of his face one day, or the balled up stuck together tissue wad from the summer cold Dean picked up after purgatory. Sam had to drive because Dean couldn't stop blowing his nose and complaining, and he ended up pouting with his head in Sam's lap for most of the trip. Maybe Sam would just explain it like that, if he had to, that it was just a box full of creepy mementos that made him nostalgic-happy.

It's a partial truth that sounds better than Sam listing off the spells he knows that call for blood or spit or toenails, and the gathered statistics on the spells he doesn't know that might require other parts of his brother. He's not surprised that the bag of hair is the first to go.

Even clutching it in his hand, he feels the buzz of the razor in his palm, hears Dean shouting over it with his sticky candy mouth 'maybe the girl was cursed, you know, the actress? Some kinda past life fate bullshit, I dunno, but I do know I'm steering clear of fucking mirrored penthouses and in-ground swimming pools' and on and on mixing with the sugary taste of Dean's mouth later and the soft crinkle of candy wrappers on the bed.

Sam hopes the replacement comes with good thoughts, laughter, wide open fall skies. He hopes this isn't the time he's bent over a corpse like a ghoul, desperately scavenging to round out his collection. There are so many resurrection spells that use fingers and teeth and eyeballs and ears. There's that one with balls nailed to a centuries old oak tree in a lightning storm. Sam's already crossed so many lines with his collection of Dean, he's afraid he won't know when to stop hedging his bets. Maybe he should have stopped already. Maybe he'd stop at his brother's heart.

Or maybe he needs a box for that too, just in case.  


End file.
